Their faces aligned, and she realized she had never seen his eyes this close. From far away they were only eerie light. Up close they looked alive, as if lightning chased itself through them endlessly.
Her storm god: violent, beautiful, and entirely too close.
And he wanted her.
“Where is your bed?”
Lily pointed toward the sleeping alcove. He carried her there as if she weighed nothing. Beside the berth, he began undoing the clever knots of her jacket. His movements were smooth, practiced. It was obvious he had spent years in uniform, but in his hands the ordinary act of undressing turned decadent.
Her nipples tightened. Even through the fabric, their peaks were visible. She drew in a breath and her chest rose, and she saw his attention catch on it.
Then, to her shock, he tore away what remained of her uniform and slipped out of his own with a fluid twist, revealing a wide chest and hard-cut abdomen. When only his trousers remained and Lily was down to her underwear, he lowered them onto the silken bedding, careful not to crush her with his weight.
His hot breath at her throat felt like a brand. She could track him only by sensation as his mouth roamed: along her collarbones, down the hollow between her breasts, teasing first one nipple, then the other with lips and teeth, then lower over her belly until he reached her thighs.
She was already soaked. Want kept building and building. He tasted the skin of her lower belly, caught the waistband of her underwear with his teeth, lifted it, then let it fall back into place. So close. Close enough to make her shake with need and yet still not enough.
She wanted him inside her. She wanted that space between her legs filled until she could not think.
When he gripped her hips and drew her to the edge of the bed, kneeling between her legs, shyness surged back unexpectedly. Lily tried to close her thighs, but his horns made that impossible. His hands pressed her open with calm, relentless certainty.
“You are temptation given form, Lily,” he said. “No wonder humans never made it anywhere in space if this is what they had to resist on their homeworld. I would have discovered fire only so I could watch you even at night.”
The words and the shameless position made her squeeze her eyes shut. She gasped when a single claw neatly sliced her underwear and cool air kissed skin that was already too hot.
“Beautiful,” Khar murmured. “Like the finest bloom in the universe.”
Lily realized what he was admiring and tried to retreat. He caught her hips and held her in place as if she were weightless to him.
“Food does not flee.”
Whatever resistance she had left cracked apart when his tongue touched her.
At first he was gentle. Then he became intent. He explored her with patient precision, the texture of his tongue unlike anything she had known, rough and perfect at the same time. He listened to every sound she made, every twitch and breath.
When he found her most sensitive point and Lily jolted, he smiled as if he had been waiting for that exact reaction. Then whatever patience he’d been pretending to have disappeared.
After two years of loneliness, the orgasm took her almost too quickly. It rolled through her in a brutal wave that stole shame and thought and replaced them with nothing but sensation. When the aftershocks faded, they only sharpened her hunger for him.
When she could speak, she pushed up on one elbow, pleading.
“Khar. I want to see you.”
He did not grant it.
Lily cried out when the first thick finger slid inside her. His mouth returned to that aching point, and when one finger was not enough, a second followed. He mapped her carefully, tormenting her with tongue and touch together.
She grabbed his horns as the second orgasm tore through her, white and merciless, until he finally released her.
She did not understand how it was possible. He was alien. A literal extraterrestrial. And yet her body responded as if he had studied her for a lifetime.
As she lay trembling, Khar rose from between her legs and removed his trousers. The next thing Lily felt was him pressing against her entrance, nudging her, stretching her without fully entering.
“Lily,” he said softly. “I know it seems large. But it will be all right. I will never hurt you. Do you trust me?”
She nodded.
Once. Twice. Three times he dragged himself along her, gliding over her opening and brushing her most sensitive places, building the ache until she felt hollow with need. She did not know exactly what he carried, and in that moment she did not care. She only wanted him to fill the growing emptiness between her legs.
